


Applied Engineering

by coffeeandfeathers



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: College AU, F/M, Mako is an engineering student, Raleigh is a chubby frat boy, Slow Burn, They become friends, for Hannah, snippets of a college au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandfeathers/pseuds/coffeeandfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A bit more building up to weird stuff. Just generally them getting to know each other.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On the first day of her second semester, Mako arrived at the lecture hall fifteen minutes early. She wasn’t usually so late, but the line at Starbucks had been longer than usual and sprinting to class clutching an overfull chai latte was not her idea of a good plan. A few seats had already been taken in the third row, her space of choice, but she squeezed past a boy clutching a laptop to his chest and settled into the center of the row. The class, Applied Engineering, was sure to be a breeze, but she wanted to make sure she secured a good seat before people started flooding in.

Producing her phone, Mako scrolled through Twitter for a second before burning her tongue on a sip of latte. She sucked her teeth in pain, almost failing to notice when someone walked down the row and hovered over her.

“Anyone sitting here?” the boy asked, and Mako looked up to find herself nose to nose with the waistband of his boxers. They were green, and Mako couldn’t help but notice how his jeans failed to keep a thin band of his pale stomach from spilling over them.

“Nope,” she said, and the boy sat down next to her. He had a bag of Cheetos in one hand and orange powered fingers that he kept sucking, running his tongue over the pad of his thumb.

“Applied Engineering, huh?” he said after a moment of silence, and Mako looked up from Idris Elba’s Twitter feed to stare at him.

“That is where we are.”

“Gonna be pretty tough, huh?”

“Engineering’s my major, actually. Mechanical engineering.”

The boy broke eye contact to stare at his shoes for a second. “Guess you’re gonna be good then.”

“Hopefully.”

“My name’s Raleigh,” he said, offering her a Cheeto hand before realizing that she probably didn’t want to touch his wet fingers and pulling it back. “Journalism.”

“Mako Mori.”

“Nice to meet you. Sorry about my fingers.” He wiggled them, blushing.

“It’s a hazard,” she said, declining when he offered her the bag. His jeans, which had already been putting up a good fight while he was standing, seemed to strain as he leaned back against the lecture seat. Raleigh didn’t seem to notice how his tight t-shirt was riding up to show a pale strip of skin and a line of hair that trailed down from his belly button into his boxers and out of sight. Mako tried to pull her eyes away, but they seemed fixed there, watching his belly rise and fall with each breathe and swallow. He was talking still, telling her where he was from and asking if she lived around here, and Mako dragged her eyes away from his stomach and towards his face.

“No,” she said, answering a question she’d only half heard. “I live about six hours away. North of here.”

“Oh,” said Raleigh, seemingly ignorant to the fact that she’d spent a solid five seconds staring at his crotch. “Long drive.”

Mako tried to smile and focus on his face. “You wouldn’t believe. It’s nice to meet a local though.”

Raleigh snorted. “There’s nothing around here. I wouldn’t exactly call myself close to anything.”

“Why didn’t you go away?”

He shrugged. “Money, mostly. Worked at an ice cream shop over the summer and saved up a little to feed myself and put gas in the car. You been to Jeni’s yet?”

“I haven’t.”

“You have to. It’s amazing. ‘Course, after a summer I got pretty sick of it.” Fingers now clean, Raleigh balled up the empty Cheetos bag and put it in his backpack. “None of my jeans fit right anymore.”

Mako bit her lip without thinking, trying not to look down at the button of his pants straining against his middle. “I guess that’s to be expected,” she said, praying that her voice wouldn’t crack.

“They’d let us take leftover pints home,” Raleigh said, pulling his shirt down as if self-consciously. “Not so great for my waistline, huh?” He laughed and pinched at his belly over his shirt. “Thought I’d get back in shape once I went off to college but I guess the freshman fifteen’s a real thing.”

“I’ve gained a couple pounds myself,” Mako said, half trying to change the subject so he would stop _touching_ himself. The pounds were exclusively in muscle, but she wasn’t going to mention that.

“You? Really?” He joked. “You look like you’ve been carved out of marble.”

Mako felt her face flush. “You think so? I’ve been trying to work out three times a week.”

Raleigh whistled. “I’m impressed. Don’t think I’ve hit the gym once since joining Tri Sig.”

“The frat?” Mako couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose and Raleigh noticed.

“I know it sounds bad but I swear to god they’re good guys,” he said. “We mostly do fundraisers for like, HIV awareness and homeless kids.”

Mako couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “Seriously? That doesn’t sound like the frats I’ve heard about.”

“It’s a pretty good one. I did a lot of research before pledging,” he said. “I mean, we do throw parties. But the other guys are pretty attentive about people getting drunk and that kind of stuff. No one gets hurt.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Mako said, taking a sip of her latte. He shrugged.

“I wouldn’t have joined if it wasn’t so good. Though all the parties…” he hefted his belly absently and a shiver ran through Mako’s body.

“What about them?”

“Beer’s got a lot of calories,” he said as if in explanation.

“So do Cheetos.”

Raleigh blushed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Mako considered asking him more about his fraternity, but then a middle aged woman stepped to the front of the lecture hall and began writing her name on the board.

“Guess we better be quiet,” Raleigh whispered, pulling a notebook out of his backpack, and Mako snuck one last glance at the smooth, round curve of his stomach before pulling her eyes away and doing the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit more building up to weird stuff. Just generally them getting to know each other.

“I hate electricity,” Raleigh said, sprawled in one of the comfy armchairs in the library three weeks later, his mouth full of potato chips. Mako was perched in the chair next to him, her Applied Engineering textbook lying open in her lap. She was trying not to chew her pen cap, but the sound of Raleigh munching his way through a second bag of chips in an hour was breaking her concentration to the point of anxiety. Every time she’d seen him in class, every time they met outside to study, he had some kind of junk food in his hand and it was driving her off the rails. She’d never considered herself particularly into big guys, but the way the jelly roll around Raleigh’s waist settled in his lap, the way his jeans seemed to squeeze tighter and tighter around his thighs, the way he ate until he was full to bursting in the dining hall, rubbing his belly and complaining that she let him eat too much… Mako didn’t know how much more she could take.

“Electricity is important,” she said, examining the problem they’d been working on for the last fifteen minutes. Raleigh fished for another handful of chips and made a noncommittal noise the back of his throat.

“It’s hard! I don’t see why we have to learn circuits. That’s physics stuff.”

“It’s part of Engineering. And it applies to physics. This is why we’re in Applied Engineering.”

Raleigh just burped in reply and Mako almost snapped her pen in half at the sound.

“’Scuse me,” Raleigh said, slowly drawing his legs down from the arm of the chair where they’d been resting for several minutes. “That hurt.”

“You okay?” Mako asked without looking up from her book.

“Yeah, just ate a little too fast. Too much grease.” He burped again and dragged his hand over the front of his t-shirt, rubbing slowly with his thumb.

“You should slow down,” Mako said. “You don’t want to get sick.”

“Nah, it’s okay. This is only… shit.”

“What?” Mako forced herself to look up only to see Raleigh pull a fistful of empty chip bags and travel size cookie boxes out of his backpack. He smiled sheepishly.

“Guess I’ve been snacking a little too much,” he said, getting up to throw the trash away, and Mako had to tear her eyes away from the swing of his wide hips and plump ass. _Get it together, Mori_ , she told herself, gnawing on the top of her pen. _He’s just a friend. When did you become so kinky anyway?_

Raleigh slumped back into his chair upon his return and picked up his textbook. “Mako?”

“Hm?”

“Do you like parties?”

Mako looked up, a little surprised. “I mean, sometimes. It depends. Why do you ask?”

Raleigh shifted in his seat. “Uh. My frat is having one tonight. I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming by?”

“Oh.”

“The other guys got some kegs and they kinda want to meet you and uh, they asked me to bring you. Because they think you sound cool.” Raleigh turned pinker and pinker as he spoke. “I dunno, I just thought you might be interested. Obviously you don’t have to come if you don’t want to but I… uh…”

“Sure,” Mako said. “That sounds like fun.”

“I mean, are you sure? ‘Cause if you’re not interested, I can tell them…”

Raleigh. It’s okay. I’d love to come.” Mako cut him off, her heart swelling at how embarrassed he was. Raleigh just blushed harder.

“Okay.”

“Do I need to bring anything?”

“Uh… no. Not unless you wanna drink something that’s not jungle juice or cheap beer.”

Mako wrinkled her nose. “I’ll bring something.”

“Don’t get all snobby on me, Mori, what did you expect from a frat?”

“Touché.” Mako turned back to her Applied Engineering textbook. “Now do you want to solve this problem or not?”


End file.
